All the discussions about CRT and Wokeness are smoke and mirrors for what Right-Wing is doing and intend to do to America from the youngest to the oldest.
After winning Nevada, Donald Trump made a statement Progressives understood. After all, it has been the Right Wing’s modus operandi.
“We won with poorly educated,” Trump said as he listed who brought him the win. “I love the poorly educated.”
Right-Wing Republicans, and for that matter, neoliberals, need poorly educated people to continue with the policies that enrich a few, placate some, and screw the many. They know the poorly educated, by no fault of their own, can be fooled into blaming their demise, not on those causing it, but on someone with some arbitrary identity.
This morning an article came across my feed that triggered me. Given what DeSantis has been doing to decimate real education in his state, it is clear the discussion about the Right Wing purposefully making America dumb is apropos.
The title and subtitle of the article said it all; “Communism Isn’t What Terrifies the GOP? It’s High-Quality and Well-Funded Public Education: Can you imagine a country where everyone was fully educated? People might actually become informed voters and demand freedom and justice for all! The idea absolutely terrifies the right.”
So for the GOP, it’s all about fear – what can you scare voters to believe that will shepherd them to support your agenda? So to start with, Republicans want you to be terrified of public schools.
The reason? They want you to have to pay to get your kids educated – but public schools give learning away for free to everyone – just for paying taxes.
Right-wingers would much rather make it all a business where the more you pay, the better the education your kids get. There’d be poor quality charter schools for those who can’t afford the entry fee, but the best of everything would be reserved for the kids of the rich and powerful whose parents would use school vouchers to offset some of their tuition at private institutions.
Public schools would undo all that – especially if they were adequately funded. Can you imagine a country where everyone was fully educated!? People might become informed voters and demand freedom and justice for all! Lawmakers might have to create real policies, a platform, solutions – to actually govern!
So GOP operatives spread hysterical lies about public schools. They call them “government schools” as if that meant some imposed bureaucracy of outsiders and not what it actually does – schools governed by elected members of the community.
The lies and innuendo are never ending. Public school educators teach fake history where the civil rights movement was a good thing. They refuse to instill the truth of Creationism over fake Evolution. Teachers are pedophile groomers – never mind the actual Republican lawmakers charged with pedophilia and rape. And on and on and on.
Which brings us to the latest one – the new red scare that public school teachers are raising the next generation to hate Adam Smith and love Karl Marx.
Of course, Governor DeSantis is the dis-educator on steroids. He wants to give teachers a $3000 indoctrination bonus for those who get new civics recertification. His new curriculum is designed to prevent critical thinking. He wants kids to learn that communism is bad and capitalism is all good by highlighting the horrors of communism.
There is so much more to education than cowering on complex, wrong, or outright evil topics. Not teaching real history and the results of it prevent past mistakes from repeating due to ignorance.
Understanding the plight of many today requires understanding the genesis of many in America. That is history.
This subject is the topic of discussion today on Politics Done Right on KPFT 90.1 FM Houston today at Noon Central Time (1 PM Eastern/10 AM Pacific/11 AM Mountain). You can listen to it on air at 90.1 FM in the Houston metropolitan area or at politicsdoneright.tv.